- Hey, in this video I'm gonna show you the seven habits of highly successful SEOs and also I believe habit number
six is the most important to master, so make sure
you watch this entire video to see what it is. Let's jump right in. (techno music) So the first habit of
highly successful SEOs is that they have an action first mindset. You have to avoid falling into the knowledge acquisition trap, meaning, you're spending
100% of your time reading and learning, but never taking action. You have to take action to see results and I know that's a crazy concept, but it's so incredibly
important to understand and if you're a beginner, then you should spend 80% of your time, trying to understand the fundamentals and then spend 20% of
your time, taking action. This 80, 20 split should
flip to 20% learning and 80% action after you
understand the fundamentals. Now, keep this in mind. It doesn't matter how much you know. Like Mike Tyson says, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. You can't learn and you can't adapt until you're in the mud. The second habit of
highly successful SEOs is that they took action before they knew what they were doing. Now, this one may seem counter intuitive, but it's one of the biggest
mistakes you can make. You do not need to be an
industry leading expert to get more traffic from Google. You just need to know more
than the average person and you just need to take action, using the information
that's already in your head. The truth is, trying
to get into the top 1% of SEO experts is a cool
goal, but it's not important for making money or getting SEO results. Smart SEOs know that SEO as
a skill is just a small piece of the growth equation. At the end of the day, SEO or
driving organic search traffic from Google, is nothing
more than a vehicle to grow your company's revenue. So that means you don't need to worry about being an expert. Just take action and
focus on getting results with the knowledge that you already have. So, third habit of
highly successful SEOs is that they've mastered the fundamentals. So if you're an absolute beginner, then you need to get base SEO knowledge. And even if you have experience, you should still study and
practice the fundamentals. This build knowledge reinforcement. Now one of my favorite
ways to think about this is a quote from Michael Jordan. He said, "You can practice
shooting eight hours a day, "but if your technique is
wrong, then all you become "is very good at shooting the wrong way. "Get the fundamentals down and the level "of everything you do will rise." so like any other skill,
SEO requires learning a few, important fundamentals. Let me show you some of the
fundamentals you need to learn. Number one, are KPIs,
analytics and date analysis. SEO requires you to analyze
key performance indicators, also known as KPIs. And don't worry, this doesn't mean you
have to be technical geek, or have a degree in statistics. You just need to, A, know
what data/KPIs actually matter and B, how to use the date and KPIs to improve your campaigns. And the number one tool
you need to understand how to use is Google Analytics. And after that you need to learn how to use Google Search Console, because Google Search Console has an array of functions that Google
Analytics doesn't have. And the final set of tools
you need to learn how to use are backlink analysis
and management tools. The three most popular tools are Ahrefs, Majestic and Moz's Open Site Explorer. The second skill you need to learn is keyword research. Identifying the right keywords is one of the most critical SEO
skills you can learn. Number three, is competitor analysis. Finding perspective keywords
is only the first step. You have to actually qualify your keywords by analyzing your competitors. Number four, is technical optimization. Technical issues will kill
your site's performance in Google and that's why
you need to become a master at finding and fixing them. Number five is page-level optimization. You have to understand
the art of optimizing organic landing pages and these are the keyword targeting pages that you are trying to rank in Google. And this is the easiest
SEO fundamental to learn. Number six is site architecture. Understanding how to structure a website, is a fundamental SEO skill. A well developed site
architecture does a few things. First, it can help search engine
spiders crawl your website more efficiently. It can also improve your user experience. It can reduce how many
backlinks you need to rank, because of the efficient
flow of link equity as well. Number seven is developing content assets. You've likely heard the
idea that content is king and this is true. Content is one of the biggest elements of a successful SEO campaign. And it is fundamental that you learn how to create keyword targeted content assets. So if you get anything out of this video, understand this one thing. Nothing is more important than studying how to create affective content. Study as much as you can
about content marketing, writing and sales copywriting. Number eight is relationship
building and outreach. To truly elevate your SEO performance, you have to learn how
to build relationships. And yes, that means
you have to communicate with real people to be successful in SEO. And I know this is a
tough pill to swallow, especially if you're an introvert, but it's necessary. You can't get very far in
this world, being a recluse. The number one tactic you need to know for building relationships online, is how to exchange value. And value comes in many different forms, including content, money,
physical products, etc, but if you try to get
something for nothing, then you will likely fail. So, number nine is link acquisition. After content, backlinks
are the second biggest ranking factor in my opinion. And you can craft the most
beautiful piece of content but without backlinks
it will probably falter. So knowing what a quality backlink is and then knowing how
to get them is the key to becoming a real SEO expert. I have a guide on backlinks which is the best way to
get started, learning this, because it is so incredibly
important to your success in the SEO field. Number 10 is conversion rate optimization also know as CRO. Now understanding how to
drive organic search traffic to websites is an
incredibly valuable skill. But knowing how to convert that traffic into actual revenue is even more valuable. Now remember what I said earlier. SEO is a means to an end. CRO is how you can reach the end and the end being new email
subscribers, leads and sales. Number 11 are audits. Every SEO expert needs to know
how to perform SEO audits. And audits help you identify issues that may be hurting
the site's performance. And I personally
recommend running an audit at least every quarter
and this will ensure that you're staying on top of things. So, those are all the fundamental skills you need to learn to become an SEO expert. Don't give up on learning when
a concept goes over your head that's totally normal,
this is a lot to learn and it's gonna take you some time, so just do your best, try to understand it and keep pushing through. And after you've immersed
yourself in these topics, it's time to take action. So the fourth habit of
highly successful SEOs is that they test. So if you're new, then I recommend
you start a niche website and as I mentioned before,
it's easy to start a niche site and it carries the least amount of risk. So the first thing you have to do after you create a niche site
is to analyze your results. But before you do, you need to understand one of the most important
rules of SEO analysis. Correlation is not causation. Now in layman's terms, don't
make conclusions too fast. Google's algorithm uses well over 200 different ranking signals and it's easy to make sweeping conclusions without looking at the big picture. For example, you may say
my rankings for X fell because I changed the
title on the landing page. Now while this may be true, you don't wanna come to
a conclusion that fast. You need to examine all
the factors before coming to a conclusion and most important, you need
to let the data guide you. So whenever your organic
search traffic increases or decreases, you should follow this simple five step analysis. Number one, ask why. It's important to question
increases and decreases because you can learn from both. Ask some of the following questions. Did we acquire any new backlinks? Did we modify any on-page SEO? Did we change the site architecture? Did we add or subtract any internal links? Are we having crawl issues? Have there been any algorithmic updates? Or is our rank tracking software accurate? Number two is to develop a hypothesis. So once you've identified
some possible culprits, you need to develop a hypothesis and this doesn't need to be rigid. Something simple will work just fine. You could say something like, "I believe our organic
search traffic has increased or declined because of
the following reasons. Number three is just to wait. That's right, you shouldn't take action on your hypothesis right away. That's because Google's
algorithm is extremely volatile and sometimes waiting and not doing anything is
the absolute best solution. I usually wait at least one week or even up to a month to see
if the issue corrects itself. And if the decline continues, it's time for action. Number four is to test it. Only take action on your hypothesis if you are at least 90% certain. Take one action at a
time if you've identified more than one. For example take an action
and then wait at least a week before taking another action. Number five is to always use annotations in Google Analytics. This is simply a check
against your hypothesis. That way you can go back and see if the exact action you took, either improved or hurt your results. And the next thing I recommend you do which I mentioned earlier
is to run quarterly audits. Next thing you have to do is pivot. In most scenarios or SEO
analysis lead to micro changes, but there will be times when you need to revamp your entire SEO strategy and remember that every website's going to have its own unique SEO experience. It doesn't matter how many
SEO case studies you read, your situation will
never be the same as mine or anyone else's. Now sure there are general principles that apply to every campaign, but how your specific campaign unfolds is completely unique. Find the 80, 20 of every campaign. What 20% of the actions are
driving 80% of your results and invest your time and
effort into those actions. So the fifth habit of
highly successful SEOs is that they build systems. Now there isn't some set way of doing SEO, but you can build a loose system. For example, this video is the culmination of years of experience
testing, and understanding what factors have the
biggest impact in SEO, but I would never pretend that any system, including my own works 100% of the time. Every website is different, every situation is different. And your SEO system or
strategy should be 100% organic and no pun intended, but
it's super important, because you don't wanna try
to create a perfect system, because that's impossible. Create your system, test
it and refine it over time and then at at certain
point, you'll wanna stop doing time consuming SEO tasks. If you truly wanna scale
or amplify your efforts, I remember when I first got into SEO, I did everything, but I quickly learned that there is no way I
could take my business to the next level if I was
trying to do everything. Now, doing everything
yourself is a good approach in the beginning if
you don't have capital, but as soon as you do, I
recommend you begin delegating time consuming tasks. From day one, analyze every
single task that you do, you'll see that over time
you perform the same tasks over and over. And these are all the tasks
that you must learn to delegate. That is, as long as you have
the right system in place. So at some point you'll likely have to go from begin an SEO expert to being a true business
owner and operator. So here's a quick checklist on how you can scale your SEO efforts. Number one is create processed, procedures and policies for everything
you do in your business. It's truly impossible to scale
without taking this step. Number two is test your processes,
procedures and policies. Have someone with little
knowledge of your industry work through your processes and
procedures and policies. Now why would you want
someone with little knowledge of your industry to go
through these processes? Well, it's because you systems
should be easy to understand. Convoluted procedures lead to confusion. Confusion leads to time loss, because of unnecessary
clarifying or explaining. That's why bringing in an
outside perspective is key to improving your systems. What makes sense in your head
may not make sense to others. Number three is to hire someone to fulfill your systemized tasks. You can use Upwork, you can hire an intern or you can hire employees if
that's the route you wanna go. Give this individual their assignment and a corresponding procedure and just see how they complete it. If they're bombarding you with questions, then you know you need to
improve your procedure. Number four is to create backup systems. So at this point you should
have removed yourself from many of the time consuming tasks and delegated them, but you would need to always prepare for
the worst case scenario. For example, the person you're relying on to fulfill this work could disappear. And that's why you must
always have a backup solution. Keep some freelancers
on your on-call roster, and these are the people
you've build relationships with and you know you can rely on them. Another backup system is to avoid relying on a single person. Hire two or three or even four people to complete a pool of tasks. That way they have to compete and even if one of them falls off the map, you still have all the
other people on your roster. And don't forget you have
already created systems at this point so even if
their help disappears, you still have your systems. That means you can quickly hire someone and get back on track really quickly. So, number five is focus on actions that have the biggest impact. Now, big impact actions in SEO are creating awesome content assets, building relationships
with key influencers and promoting your content
via link acquisition and even social media. For example, I write content on GOTCH SEO because it requires my unique
experience and expertise. I could outsource the writing, but no one could replicate
my unique perspective. I know that writing content is the action that produces the most SEO
results for my business. So, you must figure out what
actions you are best at. Maybe you excel building relationships or maybe you're a master promoter. Either way identify what
actions have the biggest impact on your SEO performance and then focus on those and
outsource everything else or delegate everything else. So here's some SEO tasks
that you can systemize and outsource. Number one, keyword research. Number two, competitor analysis. Number three, technical optimization. Four, page-level optimization. Five, content writing. Six, infographic creation. Seven, blogger outreach. And number eight citation building. And that's just a small
sample of the many many tasks you can outsource. So the sixth habit of
highly successful SEOs is that they never stop learning. The SEO industry is so dynamic and it's always changing. But while the fundamentals rarely change, it's important to stay
engaged in the industry. For general news and algorithm updates, make sure you read Search Engine Watch or Search Engine Roundtable. I also recommend that you focus
most of your learning time reading top SEO blogs. And don't just focus on blogs that align with your particular
SEO philosophy either. You can learn from the
Whitest of White Hat SEOs and the Blackest of Black Hat SEOs. There is not right or wrong way of doing SEO. White, Gray and Black
Hat SEO are all trying to achieve the same thing. You can learn from everyone. But most importantly, don't get cocky. It's so critical that you stay humble. Even when you've mastered the art of driving organic search traffic. You should still act
like you know nothing. Never stop learning and growing. The truth is there's no
end you're going to reach in your skill progression. There is always room to improve. So if you wanna learn SEO step by step, then make sure you check out my course, GOTCH SEO academy. So the seventh and final habit of highly successful SEOs is that they're super patient. SEO is not a get rich quick scheme. It requires patience, perseverance and an extreme willingness to learn. You have to take action every day if you wanna succeed in this field. And to put it in perspective, I've been doing SEO non stop since 2012 and I still feel like I
have so much to learn. You have to remember that
Rome wasn't built in one day, as cliche as it is. Every single person who has a
ton of organic search traffic and awesome SEO results, started at the same spot,
they had no traffic, no subscribers and no audience. But because they took consistent actions and learned from their actions, they are now seeing the
fruits of their labor. Just remember that your
current results are the product of the actions you took
yesterday, a week ago, a month ago, or even years ago. Make a decision today to start working on the right things. That way you can reap the
benefits in the future. So, those are the seven habits
of highly successful SEOs. So if you enjoyed this video, pleas like it and subscribe to my channel. Because you'll be the first to get access to any new videos that I publish and als if you have any
questions whatsoever, please leave it below. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.
